124 honored by the glory of islam
environment, where western European millenarianism mixed with ecstatic
Sufi sm, at the age of eighteen the charismatic rabbi began to lead his own
group of students of Kabbalah, or Jewish mysticism. His erratic behavior led
modern scholars to label him manic-depressive.^10 Because of his strange pow-
ers and magical and ascetic practices, he became the spiritual guide for many
Jews. They believed that the messiah would appear in the year 1 648. In that
year Shabbatai Tzevi pronounced the holy name of God (the Tetragrammaton)
and engaged in other scandalous practices. The rabbis of Izmir placed the ban
on him sometime between 1651 and 1 654. He left Izmir and began a tour of
Ottoman cities with large Jewish populations, including Salonica, one of the
most important centers of Jewish learning and Kabbalah. Scandalous activity
there caused him again to be banished. He traveled to Istanbul in 1 658. There,
too, his blasphemy, offenses against tradition, strange acts, antinomianism,
and elevation of sin to a holy act again compelled him to fl ee the wrath of the
rabbis, but also attracted the attention of like-minded Muslim Sufi s, includ-
ing Niyazi Misri. Around 1 660 Shabbatai Tzevi returned to Izmir. De La Croix
claims that the heavy suffering of the Jews during the great confl agration in
Istanbul pleased Shabbatai Tzevi “because he saw in it the fi nger of God, calling
his people to repentance.”^11
In 1 662 the rabbi set off for Jerusalem by way of Egypt. There he estab-lished good relations with wealthy, important Jews. When he arrived in Je-
rusalem he found Jews in fi nancial and spiritual despair since the Ottoman
government apparently taxed them to fi nance the ongoing campaign for Crete.
The leaders of the community in Jerusalem sent Shabbatai Tzevi back to Egypt
to raise funds for their survival. While in Egypt in 1 664 he married Sara, an
orphan of the Chmielniki massacres of Polish and Ukrainian Jews, who, while
being raised a Christian in Livorno, proclaimed she would one day marry the
messiah. On Shabbatai Tzevi’s return trip to Jerusalem he revealed himself as a
messiah in May 1 665.^12 A well-known Kabbalist named Nathan of Gaza, whom
Jews also described as a miracle-working charismatic man of God, not unlike a
Sufi sheikh, took upon himself the burden of being his public relations man.^13
He was the fi rst to recognize Shabbatai Tzevi’s messianic claims. Nathan’s let-
ters to western European and Ottoman Jewry informing them of the acts of a
miracle-working messiah led to widespread acceptance of his mission because
Jews at the time were accustomed to claims of prophecy.
No matter that Shabbatai Tzevi was persecuted, or because of it, his fol-lowing continued to swell. He promptly received the ban in Jerusalem and was
expelled from the city. He arrived in Aleppo in July and was favorably received,
and in September returned to his birthplace, Izmir. In December 1 665 he pub-
licly showed himself after a period of seclusion by storming Izmir’s important